Transcriber: Anna Sobota Reviewer: Pranjal Singh
We’re almost there.
(Laughter)
Hello, everyone.
Hi.
You guys are such great students.
My name is Keyla Kirton.
I am a Gen-X mother of a child who suffered with anxiety and depression.
I’m here to share our story to hopefully inspire adults
who are caring for teens that are struggling in their lives.
If you’ve lost a child or a loved one, my heart truly goes out to you.
One day our daughter told us
that she was not safe and needed to go to the hospital.
That day, five years ago, our lives changed.
At the time,
I certainly would not have said it was for the better.
But that journey taught us how to be better parents,
better listeners and better advocates for our children.
In total, our daughter has had three hospital inpatient stays.
The first day, I'll tell you the truth,
I cried myself to sleep in her room like a big baby.
But by the second and third day, I knew that she was getting the help she needed.
Also, I knew that worrying too much
was actually not very good for my own mental health.
My husband and I grew up in the church, so our first instinct was to pray.
You guys know!
Our first instinct was to pray.
Our relatives told us that,
“Hey, positive thinking is really helpful.”
But that was not enough.
Life is hard and being a teenager is that much more harder.
Problems with friends and grades
can make it really hard to have a positive self-image
and can impact our ability to have hope.
Sometimes there’s trauma, that we are just not aware of, that can play a role.
Either way, we knew that we needed to take a step to help our daughter.
If your child is recommended to a mental health facility;
I want us to do it together, let’s take a deep breath;
(Taking a deep breath)
it’s okay.
There are medically trained professionals that are there around the clock
to provide support, to provide medication and counseling.
In fact, by the end of her stay,
we received family counselling in preparation for her coming home.
We also, through the journey,
received lots of support from our employers through their BRG groups
as well as the school administrators.
One pro tip that I will offer you is:
if your child is in a inpatient facility,
it’s very important that you bring “UNO” cards,
their favorite genre of book and even coloring books.
You know why?
Electronics are not allowed, so they can’t play video games or watch “Netflix”,
which is a great opportunity for you
to shove a whole bunch of books down their throat, right?
The other thing about “UNO” that I have to warn you
is that they become experts at “UNO” playing.
So I’ll tell you this,
I actually have not won a game of “UNO” with my daughter
since she left her last hospital stay.
So wish me luck.
I want to say this,
we’ve heard some interesting comments from our friends and family
about mental health and depression, including,
“Hey, if your kid played sports,
they probably wouldn’t have time to worry about being depressed.”
Well, let me tell you,
anxiety and depression is not like the temporary stress that we feel
when we’re sitting in traffic.
In fact, it’s an overwhelming feeling
that the young people and some adults live with every single day.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Our daughter, today, has graduated from high school,
she’s enrolled in college
and she’s found interesting coping skills on her journey to adulthood,
including writing screenplays,
writing songs.
She’s written a book which I am actually jealous of,
I'm still trying to write mine.
And also, she hosts a podcast called “Ali’s Digital Diary”,
where she shares her experience with teens around the world.
I'll leave you with three things.
If your child is diagnosed with anxiety, depression or any mental illness,
it’s important that your partner - not a helicopter parent -
be a partner to your child or to your loved one
and also to the medical professionals.
Trust me, I tried the helicopter parent stuff.
It does not work, it’s not helpful.
Secondly, it’s really important that any type of help is help, okay?
It’s helping.
And last, I want you to know that it’s so critical that we understand
that just like the flu or cancer,
from anxiety, OCD, all the way to a chronic depression diagnosis,
mental illness is treatable.
Thank you so much for your time.
(Applause)